Imrem: Storming court may feel good, but it's not safe

Court-storming is like a good old greasy potato chip: so appealing yet not necessarily good for you.

Now, bakers are trying all sorts of new recipes to make their chips healthier without squandering taste.

Can that be done with court-storming? Can campus brainiacs brainstorm a way to maintain the ritual while limiting the danger? Can a suitable compromise be found?

As a panelist on ESPN's "Outside the Lines" put it, "Rush responsibly."

Look, college life could be called the Years of Living Dangerously.

Students eat mystery meat in their dormitory dining hall and get indigestion so bad they can't even go out drinking that afternoon.

Or they're caught in a panty raid, expelled from school and issued the permanent address of "homeless."

Or they storm the court after a basketball victory and are lamented by Bill Self.

Kansas' head coach reignited the debate over court-storming this week by declaring that Kansas State fans placed his players in harm's way.

Self wants something done to protect losing teams from being crashed into by court crashers. Measures do have to be taken so players, coaches and stormers themselves aren't injured.

But prohibit the ritual completely? As a big fan of "Animal House" idiocy, I have resisted endorsing such a drastic move.

The Kansas-Kansas State episode conflicted me more than ever: love the ritual, hate the potential consequences.

I can testify that innocent bystanders are in jeopardy when students are intent on invading the hardwood.

When media seating was courtside at most college games, a scary apprehension came over me whenever court-storming was imminent. There was no place to run and no place to hide and, trust me, nobody is better at running and hiding than I am.

So when Self says the home team should provide an exit plan for the visiting team, he won't get an argument here.

However, the debate becomes murkier when anyone demands that court-storming should be eliminated altogether.

Heck, potato chips and cigarettes still are legal in this country, aren't they?

One problem these days is that storming happens too often after insignificant victories. Pretty soon, they'll happen during timeouts when underdogs take first-half leads.

But this is an imperfect world, and college students are crash-test dummies for imperfection.

Parents who send their teens off to school - even teens who never have been in trouble - must not get any sleep until graduation day.

Moms and pops can only hope and wish and pray that their young ones come back mentally, physically and emotionally unscarred.

College students have a tendency to succumb to stupid temptations on their way toward adulthood. Ask any young man who had a girlfriend's initials tattooed to his forehead the day before she left him for the captain of the football team.

OK, so maybe it's time to at least regulate storming before another person is badly hurt, paralyzed or worse.

Ending the storming of courts would be sad but not as sad as something really tragic.

Remember, though, that college being college, if students aren't storming courts they might discover ways to defy authority even more dangerously.

So, please, somebody find a compromise on court-storming, and while you're at it work on a healthier potato chip.

mimrem@dailyherald.com